Training

Reviewing the Reviewer

While viewing the films in Roger Ebert's book, The Great Movies, Hal Higdon is making marginal notes, thus reviewing the reviewer. Here are Hal's comments on some of the films he and his wife Rose have seen so far:
All About Eve (1950): A brilliantly written (Oscar-winning) script by Joseph Mankiewicz. The lines hum. Cameo appearance by Marilyn Monroe shows she was more than a poster girl.
Sunset Boulevard 1950): This was a movie filmed exactly at the right time. If done a generation later, we wouldn't have had several former silent stars (Buster Keaton as well as Gloria Swanson) playing themselves.
The Night of the Hunter (1955): What was Roger thinking when he included this creepy film on his list? Would I have liked it better if in Swedish with Ingmar Bergman the director?
The Apartment (1960): Was this the harbinger of a decade of sexual excess, or was (director) Billy Wilder merely mirroring what he saw?
Bonnie and Clyde (1950): A couple of losers who rob banks for fun and in the process kill people. Not fun to see following the bank robbery near Michigan City recently where a woman got killed.
Nashville (1975): This is a movie about the 70s: Did we really dress like that? Act like that? How embarrassing!
Network (1976): I had forgotten just how good Network was, not merely as a film but in predicting the future of television. One of my college classmates served as Script Supervisor on this movie.
The Shawshank Redemption (1994): I viewed this movie expecting to complain afterwards that Roger should have chosen Cool Hand Luke as a better prison movie--but I realize now, maybe he got it right.